Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Valmy]

Those divorces won't pay for themselves.

[Sheilbh]

Not a surprise.

[The Larch]

Just read that John Cleese has joined GB News. 

Oh FFS

Doing a show on "news censored by cancel culture". 

John Cleese to host GB News show as he rails against 'cancel culture'
Monty Python star says he will talk on TV channel about 'important information that gets censored'

ohn Cleese has signed up to become a presenter on the rightwing television channel GB News, while also complaining that "cancel culture" is keeping people such as himself off TV screens.

The Monty Python star, who will present shows on GB News from next year, said: "There's a massive amount of important information that gets censored, both in TV and in the press. In my new show, I'll be talking about a lot of it. You should be prepared to be shocked."

Asked how his show with GB News came about, Cleese told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "I was approached and I didn't know who they were ... And then I met one or two of the [GB News] people concerned and had dinner with them, and I liked them very much. And what they said was: 'People say it's the rightwing channel – it's a free speech channel.'"

The 82-year-old said he would not be offered such a show by the BBC: "The BBC have not come to me and said: 'Would you like to have some one-hour shows?' And if they did, I would say: 'Not on your nelly!' Because I wouldn't get five minutes into the first show before I'd been cancelled or censored."

Cleese said he would be working with the existing GB News presenter Andrew Doyle, a comedian who used to write scripts for Jonathan Pie, a fictional news reporter who appears in online videos.

Despite a rocky launch in 2021 that resulted in the departure of Andrew Neil as chair, GB News has recovered to build a small but loyal audience. It easily beats Rupert Murdoch's much better funded talkTV as they compete for television ratings with cancel culture coverage, complaints about "wokery" in modern life, and anti-lockdown stories.

The station recently lost the US media company Discovery as a shareholder, with its funding now being largely covered by the pro-Brexit hedge fund boss Sir Paul Marshall and the Dubai-based investment firm Legatum.

GB News is being investigated by the media regulator Ofcom over whether claims about the impact of Covid vaccines breached the broadcasting code.

Asked whether free speech should extend to those spreading misinformation about public health matters, Cleese said: "If there's a factual response to something like that, then that should be made. That's the job, to put the facts out there, and then to have opinions slightly separate and have a proper argument about it, but not to try to avoid a public debate."

He said he despaired at the state of British politics and sang the praises of the Social Democratic party (SDP), a niche political party founded by supporters of David Owen who refused to join the Liberal Democrats in 1990. He said the SDP was for people who are "economically a little bit to the left and culturally a little bit to the right".

He also said Monty Python would not get commissioned by the BBC today "because it's six white people, five of whom went to Oxbridge".

He said: "If people enjoy something, then the BBC should be making more of it. And if people don't enjoy something, they should probably be making less of it. But their job is to produce the best possible programmes."

[The Larch]

Btw, has it been commented that some unnamed minister is trying to promote an Orban-like program to promote a natality boost?

BONK FOR BRITAIN
Women should get tax cuts for having children to encourage a baby boom, Cabinet minister suggests

WOMEN should get tax cuts for having children to encourage a baby boom, a Cabinet minister has suggested.

The top Tory said a bonk for Britain drive might be needed to stem declining birth rates and wean the country off its addiction to immigration.

The wacky policy already exists in Hungary, where women with four or more children do not have to pay income tax for the rest of their life.

The minister told The Sun on Sunday: "Look at the labour shortages we are suffering from.

"We need to have more children. The rate keeps falling. Look at Hungary - they cut taxes for mothers who have more children."

Over the past 60 years, British women have been having fewer and fewer kids.

Back in 1964 women usually had three children - or an average of 2.93 to be exact.

But by 2020 fertility rates had fallen to an all-time low of just 1.58 per woman, according to the Office for National Statistics.

The idea comes amid a blazing Cabinet row over immigration.

Liz Truss wants to hike the number of foreigners coming to the UK so they can fill all of the job vacancies holding back Britain's growth.

But the embattled PM is facing fierce resistance from her new Home Secretary Suella Braverman, who is determined to see numbers cut.

In an astonishing act of defiance, Suella said she wants to see net migration numbers come down below 100,000. This is not government policy. Currently the number is 240,000.

And she has blocked attempts by Business Secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg for more foreigners to come to Britain to be florists, hairdressers and town planners.

"Wean the country off its addiction to inmigration" must be one of the most cringe-inducing quotes I've heard in recent memory.

[Valmy]

Well Brexit was partly about stopping immigration right?

I am going to speculate that a lack of family homes is a bigger reason for people to not start them than high taxes.

[Sheilbh]

I take it that's a Sun article?

It's had lots of comment online today - apparently the government is (yet again) following in the footsteps of Nazi Germany/creating a euthanasia program etc. Strip away the rhetoric and it's more tax credits for kids. Although personally I think lifting the benefit cap would have a bigger impact.

Interesting thing is I think three times in the last week alone Braverman has come out with something only to be slapped down by Downing Street the next day. There this, net immigration below 100,000 as per the old Cameron target and kicking up a fuss about relaxing immigration rules with India and Australia as part of the FTA deals. It's a sign of how weak Truss already is that the Home Secretary is, apparently, already running her next leadership campaign.

Braverman's also got into a fight with Rees-Mogg who wants more immigration which means that twice in the past week Rees-Mogg has been on the correct side of an argument - which is discombobulating

[The Larch]

I take it that's a Sun article?

It's obviously not a Guardian one. 

Apparently it's the only place where it was reported, or at least the first one that did. In The Guardian I could only find an opinion piece on it.

[Sheilbh]

Well Brexit was partly about stopping immigration right?

Yes - maybe. Which is why it's really interesting that immigration is not a salient issue any more despite immigration rising post-Brexit.

I think the most likely reason is that it really was about control of immigration not the actual numbers. Free movement mae people feel like there was no control on the system (by anyone) and led to governments really cracking down on the bits they could control even if people actually didn't mind that type of immigration (Theresa May's crackdowns on student visas). There was also a sense that the EU system was basically unfair for giving priority to Europeans over ROTW - especially among minority communities who found it far more difficult for family or friends to migrate, especially when there was a perceived link to that country.

Now it seems people feel there is control - that is government sets the conditions for visas (currently covering over 50% of jobs) which apply to everyone - and immigration is no longer polling as a priority, despite the fact we're hitting record high rates. There's something like a doubling or close to of immigration from India, China and Nigeria, a quadrupling from the Philippines etc.

It's been a positive surprise as I think most people thought the issue with immigration was the numbers and control was a slogan - it looks like that may have been wrong.

Apparently it's the only place where it was reported, or at least the first one that did. In The Guardian I could only find an opinion piece on it.

As I say - Braverman's already running her leadership bid.

Ambitious Home Secretary briefs policy idea to the Sun that can be headlined "Bonk for Britain"

[Sheilbh]

Incidentally big privacy claim against the Mail by Prince Harry, Elton John, Doreen Lawrence and Liz Hurley among others. Allegations include:

The hiring of private investigators to secretly place listening devices inside people's cars and homes.
    The commissioning of individuals to surreptitiously listen in to, and record, people's live, private telephone calls while they were taking place.
    The payment of police officials, with allegedly corrupt links to private investigators, for sensitive inside information.
    The impersonation of individuals to obtain medical information from private hospitals, clinics, and treatment centres by deception.
    The accessing of bank accounts, credit histories and financial transactions through illicit means and manipulation.

None of this is necessarily that surprising for anyone who followed Leveson. But now Simon Hughes has launched a claim that his phone was hacked. I've always slightly wondered how the Mail got away without big claims around phone-hacking or the other blagging etc claims.

Looks like they didn't after all.

[Tamas]

As I keep saying, my personal experience is that Brexit was entirely about immigration. I am sure there were people like farmers who convinced themselves they would see financial benefits from it, it I am yet to encounter a person who told me they voted Leave who also wouldn't proceed to explain it was because immigration.

[mongers]

So the Truss 'government' going about as well, so far, as Putin's 'special military operation?






o

[Richard Hakluyt]

Perhaps we should stop calling it "the government" and switch to "the special political operation"?

[Josquius]

As I keep saying, my personal experience is that Brexit was entirely about immigration. I am sure there were people like farmers who convinced themselves they would see financial benefits from it, it I am yet to encounter a person who told me they voted Leave who also wouldn't proceed to explain it was because immigration.

Quite different to my experience I must say. People would often twist themselves in knots to insist immigration had nothing to do with it - though often this was a nonsense.
They'd claim nonsense about being told what to do by evil foreign occupiers, an inability to make trade deals (which they seemed to think meant we just couldn't trade and this was stopping Britain being number one) and where immigration came up pretending they just thought it was unfair against others and RACIST that we favoured Europeas.

[Sheilbh]

As I keep saying, my personal experience is that Brexit was entirely about immigration. I am sure there were people like farmers who convinced themselves they would see financial benefits from it, it I am yet to encounter a person who told me they voted Leave who also wouldn't proceed to explain it was because immigration.

Yeah I think it was overwhelmingly about immigration. There are people like Age who really care about sovereignty and people like Mick Lynch who are genuine Lexiteers - and there's more overlap than either of those groups would probably like to admit

But those groups are relatively small. By far the biggest motivation was immigration.

As I say the think I find interesting is that that vote, motivated by immigration did not translate into post-Brexit politics of massive immigration reduction. What's happened is the opposite and immigration has massively declined in importance to voters when they're asked by pollsters. Despite very different policies from the most restrictionist approach I think we've ever had under Theresa May (who did the same as Home Secretary - so I think that's just her politics) to a significant liberalisation under Johnson, and, now, Truss signalling she wants to liberalise further.

Untangling why is, I think, one of the big questions of the impact of Brexit on our post-Brexit politics. Not least because most consequences of Brexit in the real world were predictabe, predicted and have happened - which isn't very interesting. This wasn't - and I still hold out hope for my theory that Brexit would result in a more left-wing Britain. My suspicion is there is a general trend of liberalisation of attitudes, but I also think there's a degree to which Brexit effectively lanced that boil (which was something liberal leavers and minority leave voters thought would happen).

At the minute I think the Remain-y types like me need to admit they got it wrong in understanding what 2016 would mean. But you see on FBPE Twitter people being very annoyed that there's not much of a racist backlash at record levels of immigration, primarily from the global South, and some people who identify as progressive moaning at the levels of "non-European" immigration - I'm not sure it's a great look and it's an area where I think people who are progressive should just acknowledge they were wrong, but with an upside and bank the win/move on.

I think we're still a while away from full-throated pro-immigration politics but, in part, I think that's because many of our politicians were socialised in the 1997-2016 era when it was the single biggest issue voters cared about.

[Josquius]

At the minute I think the Remain-y types like me need to admit they got it wrong in understanding what 2016 would mean. But you see on FBPE Twitter people being very annoyed that there's not much of a racist backlash at record levels of immigration, primarily from the global South, and some people who identify as progressive moaning at the levels of "non-European" immigration - I'm not sure it's a great look and it's an area where I think people who are progressive should just acknowledge they were wrong, but with an upside and bank the win/move on.

I don't think its particularly unprogressive to find issue with the UK implementing a version of the kafala system.